Last week while I was at my parent’s house, I received a text message from my sister.

wanna go to a rock star party on saturday?

In other words, a party where we were supposed to dress up as rock stars. Sounded fun, but I barely had an ample supply of underwear on hand, let alone “rock star garb.”

So what do you do if you are out of town, have limited items in your suitcase and you suddenly get invited to a Rock Star Party?

Raid your parents’ closet, of course!

I have a father who goes to goth clubs and a mother with much better footwear taste than I. The two of them supplied some key components to my outfit. Unfortunately I don’t have a picture of the full assemble, but I do have a pen and a scanner, so here is a drawing:

Vicky is only hip because of her parents

Sadly, I have to admit that even if I were home with full access to my own closet, my concoction would have been lame. I rode the coattails of coolness… of… my… parents!!!

And so, I will close this post humming along to NOFX’s “What’s the Matter With with Parents Today?” from their Pump Up The Valuum album (not Heavy Petting Zoo like some lameos think):

One of my cousin‘s classmates, Joe Frambach, will start his thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail on May 1st of this year. He’s hiking to raise funding and awareness for Gilda’s Club Western Pennsylvania, an organization which provides emotional support for families affected by cancer.

**3/31/2008 Note** – Yeah, I’m not sure how to update the below paragraph. I still love the AT and dogs, so I’ll let it stick. 🙂

I love the Appalachian Trail, I absolutely adore dogs and I certainly don’t mind deducting charitable donations from my taxes. With the exception of the last part about taxes, I have plenty of pictures to support my claims (Pictures about taxes tend to be boring).

Two of my loves- Appalachian Trail and a dog

As you can expect, Joe’s fundraiser is pretty appealing to me. If you are interested in donating as well, you may do so via his First Giving site.

On Friday night, I hung out with my good friend Aaron Evans. Our evening started off with a little bit of WWE. Cracked.com has a article on “5 Ways Hollywood Tricks You Into Seeing Bad Movies“, where they share a brilliant Venn diagram on the movie Sweeny Todd:

I would think a very similar diagram could be done for the “Raw Talent” episode of Project Runway, that the union between “People who watch WWE” and “People who watch Project Runway” would be extremely small. But there are some advantages. Aaron (a WWE fan) and I (a Project Runway fan) had both seen the episode. As a result, we were both able to participate in a conversation (albeit brief) on the other’s show. The weird union on Project Runway gave us something to chat about!

We also watched a few videos on Aaron’s computer. The highlight was this oldie-but-goodie. This is a New Year’s Eve party from many years ago. Our friend Todd gets so wound up in New Year’s that he almost kisses someone he shouldn’t.

I love how Todd pushes the guy away like it was *his* fault

After that, Aaron and I grabbed some coffee in Claredon. We stopped by the Iwo Jima Memorial and headed off to meet Heather and Joe at the Black Cat in D.C. On the way there I was already laying down the ground work for a brief visit.

“So… uh… I sort of get bored of bars quickly….” I said, “So… I don’t know how long I’ll want to stay.”

Welp, the Black Cat turned out to be super fun. It wasn’t smoky and overcrowded like the bars I am familiar with. *And* it was a special 80’s Night (Which is #29 on the Stuff White People Like List). I had so much fun (completely sober!), Aaron and I stayed until the club closed.

In a town like Blacksburg, I would expect to run into people you know. In a city like D.C., I didn’t expect it. But as soon as we walked into the Black Cat, I saw some friends I hadn’t seen since August. And then later, a different set of friends showed up too!

After we left the Black Cat, Aaron and I were not deterred by the time– we went and visited the Washington Monument (where I told Aaron about Virginia’s Sharp Top Mountain mistake), the Lincoln Memorial (where I told Aaron about my childhood booger incident) and the WWII Memorial (where at that point, I was too tired to have anything relevant to say).

It was an eventful evening. It was a fun evening and it was a loooooong evening. I didn’t get back to my parent’s until 5 AM.

You learn something new every day. Yesterday I learned how spoiled I am when it comes to Valentine’s Day.

The past eleven years, I’ve had Sean. In high school, as soon as I acquired my first boyfriend I was pretty much never without that key accessory until graduation. In college I went for periods without dating, but I don’t remember any Valentine’s Day traumas.

So each year as the flurry of comments circulated about how Valentine’s Day is just a marketing ploy and how it is really Single Awareness Day and blah blah blah, I paid little note. It didn’t affect ME, after all. I still got to eat candy!

Well this year I’m at my parent’s house. Late yesterday afternoon I was working on my laptop. I was trying to get stupid SQL Server 2000 to truncate a stupid transaction log that I had stupidly let grow to 4 gigs with some impressive negligence (Finally was able to do it by changing the database’s recovery mode to “Simple”, backing up the database and then running DBCC ShrinkFile on it). With all my struggles, I figured some reheated lentil soup was my evening destiny. Then my mother called from a local restaurant where she was was meeting friends with an amazing deal!!! Two lobster & prime rib dinners for 19.99!!!

AWESOME! I love lobster! I was totally in!!! And who loves a great deal? My father… and I have tons of tales (many of them involving movie theaters and/or senior citizen discounts) to prove it.

With my mother still on the phone, I ran upstairs and went to wake up my father. I don’t think I could have hidden my enthusiasm if I tried.

“DAD! DAD! GET UP!!!! BRITTANY’S HAS A DEAL– TWO PRIME RIBS AND TWO LOBSTER TAILS FOR TWENTY DOLLARS!!!!!”

And as my giddy voice roused my deal-loving father from his slumber, the background processes of my mind worked through some simple addition.

1 + 1 + 1 ….

My dad leapt out of bed and was instantly ready to eat. And suddenly my mind alerted me to its calculation.

I gasped, “I have no one to share with!!! Who am I going to share with?!?!”

It was at that moment, I could commiserate with what all the single people have complained about for years. I was left out. I was going to be deprived cheap lobster… all because I was alone!??!

(It really took the lobster to open my eyes, I don’t think any other dish would have produced such soul-searching)

So me and my date, a.k.a Dad, headed over to the restaurant. There is another great deal at Brittany’s on Thursday nights. All you can eat roast beef for $2. My dad instantly got a plate to munch on while we waited.

It was so romantic. Red table clothes, white candles… and my Dad shoveling dirt cheap roast beef in his mouth, occasionally making slurping noises with the au jus.

Now if you are a diligent reader, you may remember I gave up red meat for Lent. My plan was to give my father my prime rib. But when the waitress arrived my father started to explain Lent and asked if I could get another lobster tail instead of prime rib.

“Dad, I doubt they can do that. It’s not fair.” I said, mostly to show the waitress that dissent with Dad was okay.

“I’m not sure. I’ll ask,” she said and disappeared in the back.

She returned shortly with drinks. As she started to hand out beverages to some of my mother’s friends, my charming date started to bark, “I got a Pepsi! Pepsi! Over here!”

And sure enough, thanks to the beauty of competence, our waitress happened to have a Pepsi on her tray allocated just for my father.

“The manager says ‘Okay'” she reported and gave Dad his coveted drink.

“Oh wow. Okay, I’ll do that,” I said.

“ME TOO!” Dad quickly added.

The waitress gave Dad a perplexed look, but left to place our order for four lobster tails.

When she was out of earshot, I poked fun at my father for exploiting the system.

“WHAT?” his eyebrows crinkled up innocently, “You gave up red meat for Lent, maybe I did too.”

“You’re eating roast beef.”

Dad looked at his plate and started to laugh, “Well, maybe I gave up prime rib for Lent!”

I am not sure if the waitress would buy that, but nonetheless she delivered us: